• Gaspard Ulliel died on January 19, 2022 in a skiing accident.
  • Her ex-companion and mother of her son, Gaëlle Pietri tells the story of the Gaspard she knew in a posthumous letter published by Grasset, Le temps de te dire adieu.
  • Portrait of a solar, modest and mysterious being.

"Your death surprised us all, it was inflicted on us, without it even having any meaning, and then an ocean of revolts engulfed us." Ex-companion of Gaspard Ulliel and mother of his son Orso, Gaëlle Pietri chose to write a posthumous letter to say a final goodbye to the actor, who died in January 2022 after a skiing accident. Le temps de te dire adieu, published by Grasset at the end of April, will not satisfy the curiosity of readers who would hope to know details of Gaspard Ulliel's private life, "Gasp" or "Gaspouille" for those close to them. With modesty and poetry, Gaëlle Pietri recounts an impossible mourning, confiscated by the crowd and the media hype, and tries to paint the portrait of this mysterious and discreet being. Which Gaspard do we meet in this short text crossed by the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates or Delphine Horvilleur?



Gaëlle Pietri plates her thoughts, like a patchwork of memories, questions and literary references. In an incessant back and forth between the day of the ceremony in Saint-Eustache and the story of their relationship, she questions her place in this mourning, "the validity of her suffering and the legitimacy of her word." The model with the sensitive pen retraces her meeting with the actor. Passing through Paris -at that time, she lived in New York-, she was invited to see him play at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in a play directed by Michel Fau.

Gaspard joins his table in a restaurant after the performance. They have a mutual friend. Glasses clash, keys are lost... Gaspard is waiting for her in front of her house on his motorcycle. Gaëlle Pietri tells this love story in small touches, with restraint. And a few years later, "in a burst of banality", they decide to have a child. Orso. To whom she dedicates this letter, to keep alive the memory of her father. When Gaspard died, he had just celebrated his sixth birthday.

"Your favorite game: take everyone on a boat"

Subscribed to dramatic roles -Saint-Laurent, Just the end of the world, Sibyl-, the actor is nevertheless very funny. We don't know enough. "Your favorite game: take everyone on a boat. Invent incredible or insignificant stories to push others to their limits, play tricks on them, know how far you could go in the lie, in the game, "she writes. Because Gaspard has not always been this young first of French cinema with a perfect physique. He knew nothing of his strengths until his late teens.

Gringalet, laughing... His dimple born of a scar drew a falsely ironic air on his face. As a child, he had a swinging gait that gave him a somewhat left-handed look. Moreover, he was left-handed, like his son, says the author. It is perhaps because of this first part of life that he knew how to remain humble, always in the shadow of the spotlight, protecting his privacy at all costs.

"You can't fight against legends"

At the evocation of Gaspard, always the same adjectives: discreet, elegant and above all mysterious. "Mystery. It's the word that comes up the most when we talk about you. A mystery that I was unable to solve during the six years we spent together." He kept a distance, stayed on the reserve. "In spite of or because of this force of attraction, there remains this strange impression of not having really known you. That there has always been another part of you, a diverted face, an off-camera. That your mind has always been obscured by an eclipse. May you remain forever frozen in the unreal."

The young woman, who struggles to recover from double mourning (separation and death), revolves around this solar, modest being, passionate about art and skiing. There is rarely any mention of cinema in this book, except to evoke its seriousness and dedication. Only two names are mentioned: his "big brother" Bertrand Bonello and his friend Jérémie Rénier.

We discover the Gaspard cinephile whose long-awaited career as a director remained to be built. He had undertaken film studies in Saint-Denis to go behind the camera. Life wanted otherwise. We meet an ecstatic father who, a few days before his death, arrived with a clown under his arm to celebrate his son's birthday. An elegant man even in separation, passionate about literature, music, who would have liked to have absolute pitch. A man capable of finding a comic angle in all things, "sort of Buster Keaton" of everyday life. "We cannot fight against legends," writes Gaëlle Pietri in the last pages of her book. His caption remains in his filmography. In the end, wasn't it through each of his roles that he revealed himself best?

20 seconds of context

The author of this article shared all her schooling with Gaspard, from primary to final year, before he became the Gaspard Ulliel that everyone knows. Hence the use of his simple first name in the article.

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